James Goodman

Background

I specialise in collaborative processes using futures tools such as scenarios, trends and visions. I’m also responsible for the whole range of methods we use, making sure we have the right processes to shift our key systems of food, energy and finance towards sustainability.

I came to Forum in 2001 from a market research agency, where I managed global research projects for tech firms. Joining Forum, I focused initially on what the digital revolution meant for sustainability, and co-wrote a book on the subject, Making the Net Work, published in 2003. I’ve kept my interest in ICT, for example through sitting on Vodafone’s sustainability advisory panel, but have broadened the work I do, and in 2006 I set up Forum’s futures team. I have developed our futures tools to be as practical as possible, much more than an academic exercise. The futures approach has become one of the most effective ways we have for creating change – whether it’s working with individual organisations such as PepsiCo or Unilever to imagine sustainable future business, or with industries such as tourism or the shipping industry.

My dream project? To pull together big business, public sector and social enterprise to come up with a striking business model that restores the natural environment and makes investors happy at the same time. Needless to say, futures and innovation tools would be intimately involved. And this project would create the world-changing leadership position that others feel compelled to follow.

What floats my boat outside of work? In my other life, as they say, I am a poet. My first collection of poems is Claytown (Salt Publications, 2011).